Faraway Cuba. We were in Havana, the capital. Questions were haunting us. As we travelled from the airport, the land and its stories gave rise to a curiosity which had to be quelled. We had heard a lot of the country; that it was a combination of the old and the new, that it lived on the edges of the blue-black Atlantic. We had only seven days to understand the land; time was short but the questions numerous. Would it be possible to comprehend the psyche of the country? Its dreams? Its failures, its successes? We landed in Havana with apprehensions and an anxiety which comes from wanting to know the uncertain and unknown, but not knowing whether there lay understanding at the end of the chiaroscuro.

We landed in Havana at 10 in the evening. The drive to the heart of the city was revealing; the road was flanked by a dark countryside and townships. We wondered why there were no lights and were told that Cuba was going through a major power crisis and that it was worse some years back when the land went without electricity for even 10 hours at a stretch which had now been brought down to around three hours daily. We had had some exposure to the US only a couple of years back and, incidentally, we had been in Paris only the other evening. The lights there had been dazzling, the nights electric. It was a sad thought. Cuba, which was the leading light in the fight against US imperialism, was shorn of power. It was not a comforting thought.

We spent the windy night at the city guest house which had all the amenities. At 10 in the morning, we were out again. There were small groups of people at every street-corner as our car moved past on the wide roads. These people raised their hands, as if in recognition. We asked our interpreter why they were doing so; we were told that they were asking for a ride to their destinations. The buses were huge and full, bristling with commuters. The transport system had taken a beating after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Almost all the buses which plied on the roads of Cuba were from the erstwhile USSR but now, spares were not available. As a result, almost 40 per cent of the buses were now useless. To circumvent this problem, Cuba had designed its very own ``castle bus,’’ a huge camel-like juggernaut which can carry as many as 350 passengers. But even that had not helped resolve the transport problem.

The system to provide rides to passengers on Cuban roads was one of those unwritten laws which had evolved out of the people’s basic desire for cooperation. Such an exercise would be unimaginable in the US or any other developed nation where crowded buses are few and far between and people asking for rides would not even be discussed! But Cuba was setting an example; whereas the helping hand was all but invisible in the rich countries, this small nation was showing what could be achieved when people want to help each other in times of distress.

The bus fares vary between 20 and 40 cents and depend on the type of buses; travel on the faster vehicles cost more. The Cuban government has now taken a hard, sharp look at the transport problem and decided to give the sector industry status. There are policy decisions in the offing about importing buses and other vehicles from abroad.

Dollar vs Peso

A young girl, who runs a terrace cafetaria in an international centre, is paid 221 pesos and lives five kilometres away. Her husband is a professional painter and the couple live off these earnings. The cost of food is little, medicine and child education are free and the government housing rent is negligible with the advantage that after some years, the tenant gets to own the house itself.

When the USSR collapsed, the dollar stood at 120 pesos though that has come down to 21 pesos now. Till a few years back, food was not available in the open market though now such restrictions have been somewhat eased. Twenty-day stocks are available through the ration shops and the prices offered in the open market are affordable.

There is not much of a disparity in the incomes of salaried workers in the cities with doctors and other topranking officers earning more than the others. The rest get around 300 pesos. Since there is not much difference in the payscales, there is no major room for a diaspora of entertainment and luxury. The opulence and extravagance so evident in the US are absent in Cuba.

It is apparent that the rural gentry earn more than their urban counterparts. We visited an agricultural cooperative farm in a village within the limits of the Havana district. The farm has grown by leaps and bounds since 1978 when the farm was set up with only 12 members in an area spread over 72 hectares It now has 142 members and the farm has a reach of 310 hectares. The cooperative president is 65 years of age with the municipality party secretary touching only 35; it is unique blend of the old and the young. The daily wage is 19 pesos with half of the annual profits distributed among the members at the end of the year. The rest goes to research and investments.

The autonomous municipalities cover more than 42,000 residents. The soil is rich and gives rise to various types of vegetation. The tobacco industry is important. There are 12 schools and five nurseries though the literacy rate has touched 100 per cent. The plastic, flour and cloth industry is growing and the arts has found a growing demand in the cinema and literature of the entire region.

The cooperative president who was our host for the day wears an unkempt look, cigar dangling from his lips. The cooperative has been named after a revolutionary and memorabilia is sprinkled all over, creating just the right mood. The fare served for us was rich consisting of rice, mutton, salad, fruits and sweets; our host took the opportunity to inform us that the workers of the cooperative had been the given the same food which they were having in their lunch room. No distinctions of any sort are made at any level.

The cooperative structure is peopled by former revolutionary; our constant companion Queto Soso being one of them , having fought for two years in Angola. Soso stops the car outside the building as he sees an old man. Embraces over, he tells us that this man had fought alongwith him in Angola. We tried to picture the man in fatigues, fighting the battle of his life.

The fighters of the next generation too are ready. We move towards Hemingway’s house outside the city limits. On the way, our companion David points to a house where he says the American who bombed Hiroshima used to live and train. The pilot had turned lunatic later in life. This house now has the training centre of the Cuban naval force. We asked whether it would be possible for Cuba to defend itself against an US attack. The reply was immediate, ``They are far more powerful in the seas and air. But on land, the people of Cuba will never give an inch without a fight. They will never be able to penetrate our soil.’’